"I did not hear it." Katherine fixed her clear eyes squarely upon the other girl. "I heard Jerry scream 'Look out!' and then the car struck me." "Hm! Well, all I can say is you girls should not have been strung across the road as you were," was Leslie's bold criticism. "We were walking only on the half of the road used by cars coming toward us," was Katherine's quietly defensive rejoinder. "But it doesn't matter, Miss Cairns. I do not intend to make any trouble for you. I hope all excitement of the accident has died down before this." "It will be dropped unless that crowd of girls you go with keep stirring it up," retorted Leslie. "I wish you would ask them to let it drop. Since you are willing to, why shouldn't they be? I wasn't to blame. Start an inquiry and the result will be we'll not be allowed to keep our cars at college. That will hit some of your friends as well as myself and mine." "I give you my word that I shall drop the matter. I know my friends have no desire to keep it active. I say this in their defense. I cannot allow you to misunderstand or belittle their principles." Katherine spoke with marked stiffness. She could endure Leslie's supercilious manner toward herself. When it came to laying the fault at the door of her beloved friends--that was not to be borne. "I'm not in the least interested in your friends. All I want them to do is to mind their own business about this accident. If you say they will, I look to you to keep your word. If you will accept a money settlement, say what you want and I will hand you a check for that amount." Leslie made this offer with cool insolence. "Please don't!" Katherine was ready to cry with weakness and hurt pride. "I--won't you look upon the whole affair as though it had not happened? Money is the last thing to be thought of." "Very well; since that is your way of looking at it." Leslie rose. She experienced a malicious satisfaction in having thus "taken a rise out of the beggar." Her point gained, she was anxious to be gone. "Hope you will soon be as well as ever. If you need anything, let me know. I must hurry along. I have a very important dinner engagement this evening. Goodbye." She made a hasty exit, without offering her hand in farewell. Katherine lay back among her pillows with a long sigh of sheer relief. She felt that she could not have endured her caller two minutes longer without telling her frankly how utterly she detested her. Marjorie and Jerry coming cheerily in upon her soon after classes, she confided to them the news of Leslie's call.